 A housewife takes on a green monster for a lover
Dorothy Caliban lives with her husband Fred in California. She’s recently bereaved, having lost her son and miscarried a baby. The love has gone out of her marriage. Her husband Fred is even having an affair, but the two stay together because they can’t really be bothered separating. Dorothy pretty much takes all of this in her stride. To keep her sane, she has her friend Estelle to confide in. Estelle is a feisty character and tells it like it is. Another outlet for Dorothy’s frustrations and anxiety is the news on the radio. She hears all sorts of stories. One tells of a creature that has escaped from a laboratory and is on the run, an amphibious being called the “Monster man”. When Dorothy is cooking dinner one evening, the kitchen door opens and the monsterman appears. He’s a green thing, about six feet seven, and besides his green skin and funny ears, looks like a man. Dorothy decides to call him Larry. Larry stays in a spare room, and seeing Fred is always out, it’s easy to hide him. Soon a closeness develops between Dorothy and Larry. They become lovers. Their relationship you couldn’t call a classic love story, but there’s an intimacy and sharing there. Larry helps with the housework and listens to Dorothy as she relays her day to day problems, mostly involving Fred, her friends and family. First published in 1982, soon forgotten, then again revived, it’s hard to categorise Mrs Caliban. On first blush it’s a weird, eccentric story, but it’s also briskly paced, enjoyably quirky and with a breezy, wisecracking type of humour. In short, it’s got a very American style (author Rachel Ingalls moved to the UK in 1965). Trying to figure out what the book means is mystifying. Dorothy Calibran is betrayed by many people in the story, but she doesn’t play the victim, and when Larry comes along she seems relieved to have someone to honestly talk to. Larry is masculine, we learn he’s quite a powerful creature, but he’s also easily domesticated. A perfect at home companion who doesn’t cheat or judge. A blunt, comic portrait of suburban American life and its petty aspirations. Mrs Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls. Faber. $19.99 Review by Chris Saliba  A Polish science fiction classic at last available to English readers.
A robot, known as BER-66, sits on an assembly line. When he comes to his final position, the robot in front of him turns and gives a long speech. It starts, “We have given you life, so you can discover a fraction of the great secret.” BER-66 learns he has been created by a force called “the Mechanism”. He is a robot, but he is able to at least imagine free will. His mission is to collect information on the inhabitants of a subterranean world, called the shelter. A catastrophic event, explained much later in the book, has caused the earth’s population to seek refuge underground. But BER-66 discovers another world, a petrified city, further down. BER-66 learns that time and gravity are different in the petrified city. “One second in the city equalled three hours in the shelter.” All objects are also correspondingly heavy. As BER-66 tries to solve the mystery of the petrified city, and also whether he is indeed human or robot, he will be forced to consider such weighty questions as fate, destiny, time, gravity and free will. Robot by Polish writer Adam Wisniewski-Snerg is considered a science fiction masterpiece. First published in 1973, this English translation by Tomasz Mirkowicz was prepared some thirty years ago, in collaboration with the author. For some reason, it’s only been published now. Science Fiction buffs will enjoy this complex, surreal and philosophical novel, with its concentration on Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s haunting imagery reminded this reviewer of the paintings of Salvador Dali and films of David Lynch. Wisniewski-Snerg’s intellectual powers and conceptual gifts put him somewhere in the realm of Stanislav Lem, but without that author’s sense of humour and great sense of irony. An eerie and creepy story, deeply intellectual and sometimes hard to grasp, but unforgettable nonetheless. Robot, by Adam Wisniewski-Snerg. Published by Penguin. $19.99 Review by Chris Saliba  When artist and environmentalist Daisy Baker is found dead near Canticle Creek, a young hoodlum from the Northern Territory is blamed.
Jess Redpath is the top cop in the small town of Kulara, Northern Territory. When restless young lad Adam Lawson gets himself repeatedly in trouble, she vouches for his character to keep him out of jail. He's basically a good kid, she thinks, and hopes this lucky escape from prison time will set him on the straight and narrow. Adam bolts south to country Victoria, gets involved with a girl named Daisy Baker and is suspected of her murder. After Daisy's body is found in a ditch, he tries to escape, but crashes his car and kills himself. All the evidence points to Adam's guilt, but Jess's gut instinct tells her something different. Adam was a bit of a lad, and talented artist too, but no murderer. None of it makes sense. To find out more, Jess travels to Canticle Creek, rural Victoria, where the crime took place. There she meets an unsettling cast of characters: disgruntled loggers, violent drug dealers and ambitious property developers. A small-scale war is going on between greenie conservationists and those who'd like to exploit the pristine wilderness for financial gain. As Jess gets to know the locals, including a few dangerous run-ins with a thuggish crime ring, she learns that Daisy was a keen amateur botanist. She'd discovered a rare orchid in the Canticle Creek area, signalling land that might be worthy of preservation. Could Daisy's activities have rubbed some people up the wrong way? And could Adam be innocent after all? Canticle Creek is the third novel from Ned Kelly award winning author Adrian Hyland. It's a cracking tale that holds the reader's interest from first page to last. The protagonist, tough cop Jess Redland, is entirely likeable and real. She's seen it all in her time in the Northern Territory and has a no nonsense approach. The plot is multifaceted and complex, with a lot of different strands to tie up, but a sheer delight to read. The descriptions of the natural environment are a joy. First Nations knowledge of Country is also carefully woven into the plot, in a way that doesn't feel forced or tokenistic. Australian crime that ticks all the boxes, addressing issues of corruption, power, money and environment. A winner. Canticle Creek, by Adrian Hyland. Published by Ultimo. $32.99  A woman is manipulated and intensely watched in this unusual tale of obsession.
A woman observes another woman, who wears a purple skirt. She tracks her every move, stakes out her apartment and knows her daily routine. The Woman in the Purple Skirt, we learn from the observer-narrator, sits at a favourite bench at a local park, talks to the inquisitive children who play and has a habit of eating cream buns. The Woman in the Purple Skirt doesn't work much, holding down the occasional odd job. The narrator, who describes herself as the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, manages to steer the Woman in the Purple Skirt to a job interview at her own place of work. Purple Skirt and Yellow Cardigan are soon working side by side at a hotel, doing menial work, cleaning rooms etc. Purple Skirt doesn't know she's the subject of such close scrutiny. She does quite well at the hotel and makes friends, which somewhat piques the controlling Yellow Cardigan. When Purple Skirt starts an affair with a senior staff member, things start to go off the rails. Japanese writer Natsuko Imamura has written a wonderfully suspenseful and quirky thriller, with its unlikely backdrop: the world of boring work. The novel is notable for the way it chronicles the minutiae of daily life - bus trips, lunch excursions, small gossip and pettiness at work. The cleaning staff at the hotel all exist in a competitive bubble, spying and squealing on each other. This eccentric and original story has much in common with Dostoyevsky's The Double, an often funny, surreal tale about a government clerk who turns up to work one day to find a competitive young man who looks eerily like him doing the same job. The steady drumbeat of tension is also reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith, especially her novel about an unhealthy obsession, This Sweet Sickness. Quirky and addictive. The Woman in the Purple Skirt, by Natsuko Imamura. Published by Faber Fiction. $27.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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